Eddie Obeid, Ian Macdonald and Obeid’s son Moses found guilty
Former Labor ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald, and Obeid’s son Moses, have been convicted of conspiring over the creation of a exploration licence in the Bylong Valley.
Police & Courts
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Disgraced former Labor ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald, and Obeid’s son Moses, face prison time after being sensationally convicted of conspiring to create a mining lease over the Obeid’s Bylong Valley farm.
As Mineral Resources Minister, Macdonald, 72, had wilfully breached his duties of confidentiality and impartiality which allowed the Obeids to acquire a 25 per cent interest in Cascade Coal and when it won the silent tender to mine coal on the family’s Cherrydale Park property, they sold their interest and made $30 million.
While the Obeids did it for the money, Macdonald ostensibly got nothing from the deal apart from perhaps paying back a debt of gratitude to his old mate Eddie for his political patronage over the years, Justice Elizabeth Fullerton said in the Supreme Court on Monday.
With the men listening via videolink due to Covid restrictions, Justice Fullerton found them all guilty of the a single charge of conspiring for Macdonald to misconduct himself by doing acts in connection with the granting of the Mt Penny coal exploration licence in 2008.
The very moment she said she found the case proved, both of the Obeids disappeared from their screens as the links appeared to crash.
They were back moments later.
The convictions can lead to a maximum sentence of life in jail.
Eddie Obeid, 77, Moses Obeid, 51, and Macdonald had all pleaded not guilty and the trial was heard by the judge sitting alone without a jury due to the notoriety of the case.
When the claims were investigated by the Independent Commission Against Corruption in 2012, it was described as a level of corruption which had not been seen since the days of the Rum Corps in the early years of European settlement.
“It is fundamental to our system of government that ministers who occupy office as members of the executive government are entrusted with powers, duties and responsibilities exclusively for the public benefit,” Justice Fullerton said on Monday.
“That is not simply an arcane feature of the Westminster system as we have inherited it.
“The people of NSW are entitled to expect that, in the office of a Minister … consistent with the oath or affirmation that their elected representatives take when admitted to that office, that he or she will act as a Minister of the Crown at all times conscientiously and honestly in the public interest.”
The prosecution indicated they would be seeking a custodial sentence and the three men, who are currently on bail, will hear on Thursday whether that bail will continue until they are sentenced on September 8.
The men had described the charge as “nonsense”, ”reconstructed fiction” and ”a reductionist attempt to rewrite history”.
The conspiracy between the three men occurred between September 2007, when an Obeid company bought Cherrydale Park, and January 2009.
The judge said the conspiracy was in force in May 2008 when Macdonald, having announced 11 mining exploration leases, inquired with the Department of Primary Industries how much coal was in the area of Cherrydale Park and then “strongly suggested” that the department create a small coal release area that encompassed the farm.
Companies could only enter the closed tender process by invitation and Moses Obeid was negotiating with one of them, Monaro Mining, through an intermediary. When Monaro couldn’t come up with the finance to bid, Moses began negotiations “in earnest” with the second company, Cascade Coal.
The state government cancelled all the coal exploration leases in 2014 in the belief that the process of issuing them had been corrupted after the ICAC made findings that the two Obeids and Macdonald were corrupt.
Eddie Obeid was released from Silverwater Jail on parole just two years ago after spending three years of a five years sentence for misconduct in public office for lobbying senior water bureaucrats for the rights to waterfront businesses without disclosing family business interests in cafe leases on Sydney‘s Circular Quay.
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